FS Toastmasters

Co-Toastmasters Karla Reese and John Glover provided the theme of vacations which was reinforced by Table Topics Master Judy Groff.  She had us imagine the benefits of travel as well as the negative points.  This led to a debate between Hoyt Griffith and Melinda Lowrance.  In his table topic, Hoyt picked benefits and spoke to seeing always new places rather than returning to old haunts.  Melinda grabbed ahold of the negative side in her fear of flying, avoidance of older drivers, run-ins with discourteous hotel staffers, and especially, having to fumigate against dust mites and bed bugs.   Stanley Yurth gave his ice breaker to say how in Toastmasters and in his career he was becoming a better version of himself.  He said his mother had migrated from Hondurous and met his dad in 1998.  He described how he'd become an entrepreneur with electronics.  Jeanne Resen gave a Powerpoint on Team Building.  She gave us lots of take aways t...

Nathan led our meeting as Toastmaster of the Day. He chose the theme "Sleep: The Lost Third of your Life" and sprinkled in some interesting facts, weird phenomena, and helpful advice throughout the meeting to encourage us to appreciate and respect our nightly slumber. The theme of sleep was also incorporated by our Word Master, Stanley, who chose the word "siesta." This was also reinforced by our Table Topics Master, Don Glovan, who had all the table topic participants speak "progressively," coming to the front simultaneously and talking about a continuous dream, picking up from where the last person left off.   We had two speakers. Speaker 1 was Hoyt Griffith who's project was called Speaking to Inform. He tackled a very difficult subject: Universal Basic Income. He focused on both the economic and emotional benefits of having a UBI and helped us visualize a near future where a UBI could redefine work, leisure time, and humanitarian p...

Sally Jones led our meeting from the lectern as Co-Toastmasters of the day.  Stanley Yurth was Co-Toastmaster from his seat but led in revolutionary fashion by creating a special template for the agenda.  He made this available to all members in Google Docs. Our Eyes and Ears team were as follows: Melinda Lowrance as Ah Counter, Brad Dienst as Grammarian, Don Groff as Timer, and Ron Climer as Word Master. Sally and Stanley included the descriptions of their roles on the agenda which was helpful for our guests. Our guests included   Bernie Fox, Beth Cohen, Diane Emon, and Julia.  Ron introduced our Word of the Day, bellicose, which he defined as an adjective that means demonstrating aggression. "Bellicose" was used abundantly throughout the meeting. He filled in as joke master to kick off our meeting with an impromptu joke about St. Peter and The Pearly Gates. We had two speakers today. Our first speaker was Melissa English who's project was called How to...

Our meeting this week revolved around the theme of Work in Progress, a theme given by our president and Toastmaster of the Day Judy Groff, that represented some of the changes we're undergoing now that we're in the new year. We were honored with two guests this week, Bernie Fox and Margaret Davis. The Eyes and Ears team were as follows: Karla Reese as Grammarian, Brad Deinst as Timer, Michael Thompson (shadow) and Melinda Lowrance as Word Masters (Word of the Day: Progress), and Don Groff as the Ah Counter. After being thoroughly entertained with a joke from Don Gloven, we heard from our first speaker Stan Coss with a project was from the Informative Speaking Advanced Manual, the Fact-finding report.  He was to conclude with a question and answer section. Stan gave a very entertaining and informative speech on the destruction of the district-wide Toastmaster's Humorous Speech Contest. He proposed that we keep the humorous speech contest alive at the club level and e...

Jeanne Resen was our Toastmaster of the day, and she did a great job using the theme of Unity. She helped institute some new procedural changes to our meetings which revolved around making the meetings more efficient, including shortening the Eyes and Ears team introductions and the Timer report, and allowing more time for things like Table Topics. The Word of the Day was Abundance. After a joke from Hoyt, Nathan started us off with a timely speech on Leadership to help ring in the new year of our new club officers. He spoke about how leadership shouldn't be something we seek out but should be a challenge we embrace with open arms when the opportunity presents itself to us.  Don Groff gave an impromptu second speech to fill in and reminded us all of the importance of always having a speech in our back pocket. He spoke on summer jobs and the evolution and significance of them, sharing several examples of some of his past work experiences. Brad's Table Topic theme wa...

Carol Walters, President and Toastmaster started the meeting welcoming three  guests. Don Ammons, Julia Bird and Margaret from Vermont. They  have all been previous Toastmaster members and are checking us out. Carol said her theme for the meeting is Careers: Highs/ Lows/ and Humorous.  Exciting new business was our new member induction by Betty McCallister, VP Membership. We were pleased to induct four new members today: Stanley Yurth, Michael Thompson,  John Glover, and Amy Sahf. These new members are adding new energy into our club. Nathan Garnett showed us his stuff as Joke Master. He did a stand up comedy routine for us. It was funny and clearly his stuff. Carol introduced the Eyes and Ears Team of Don Groff, Grammarian and Word Master; Stanley Yurth, Ah Counter; Hoyt Griffith, Timer. Speaker #1 was Don Glovan. He did a follow-up to his previous speech incorporating suggestions coming from the evaluation of his first speech. We remembered how he intr...

The purpose of this gathering was to get better acquainted with each other, have fun, and share ideas on issues of importance to helping the club grow and mature. Twelve members came and brought food, drinks and supplies for the cookout that would close out the evening. Very quickly, Judy organized the group into pairs who would interview each other for the purpose of introducing  in one minute  to the whole group. One question each member responded to was what drew them to join Toastmasters. We learned that quite a few of us wanted the mental stimulation and challenges presented by Toastmasters. We also learned some interesting things like Nathan is working on being a “stand-up comedian”, and Melinda spoke to 117,000 people on a live video stream after doing her first Icebreaker for Toastmasters. Judy used her “singing bowl” to call time on introductions. During this time, Don was churning the ice cream.                 ...